Views from my window

Isn't it funny how we see people? Our perceptions of others based on what we think they should be. An activist. A lecturer. An expert in a field. A car guard. 

As someone increases in knowledge, do we expect them to become more or less emotional. Outbursts should be rare, logic increased. 

And what of empathy? Does it become a rare thing or is it cultivated, pruned leaf by leaf as the master cultures his bonsai? Until it becomes a thing unreal by natural standards, a miniature of the grand old weeping willow which trails its leaves into to steam, hiding those within its shelter. But a bonsai can do none of this, at most it could hide words and thoughts before the drift stream-ward. Should we be mastered by logic? Regulated by rules and protocol? Where are the wings of creative and critical thought... The tools of universities and philosophers of old? Are we so tied up in the rules of the now that we forget the calling of old. 

Why are we here? 

My family and other animals

As a young reader, I was taken with the works of Gerald Durrell. A man who travelled the world collecting animals for his zoo, he developed a passion for all creatures wild, wiley and woolly. 

I loved his renditions of his life as a young boy growing up on the Greek island of Corfu, a wild place, so different from the suburb in which I lived. 








My holidays were spent on my grandparents farms on the border of what was then called the Ciskei and the Eastern Cape and the wild landscapes of his books called to me. I loved to swim in rivers, run through the bush barefoot and be wild and free. 
As a young adult, I came to term with the fact that my cat allergies would not allow me to become a vet so I became a teacher, and a dog trainer on the side. 







After my accident I could no longer run and walk with my three dogs, Thomas, Queenie and Boots so slowly my house has filled with smaller folk.. Spikey, the bearded dragon, Hawthorn the hedgehog, Max the African Grey parrot and our latest addition, Mazuri our sweet little rat. 


Each have brought their own character and stories to tell and maybe one day, my children will write their memoirs of their Family of Many Animals...